FIA GT Championship

Bartels second win at Spa Francorchamps with Vitaphone

© Planetlemans - Frank Feenstra

With a second consecutive win at Spa, and his third of the season to date, Michael Bartels had good reason to be delighted with the outcome of the fourth round of the 2006 Championship ! He and his team-mate Bertolini have strenthened their lead in the classifications, while their team-mate for Spa, Eric van de Poele, was equally thrilled with his fourth victory in this classic event.
Bartels explained: "There is so much to tell about this race ! First of all we have to say that was one of the most brilliant races in the 24 Hours race history, I think. It was a 24-hours sprint, and we have to say a special thank you to the drivers of the nr 5 car. We know all each other very well, and we knew that they are very good. It was an unbelievable fight, with an incredible fighting spirit, especially in our team because we were chasing them all the way through after a few problems at the beginning of the race… and then a few laps before the end there was just 5 seconds between the first car and us, after twenty-three and a half hours of racing. It is just unbelievable. We had a big fight and it was great.

The fighting spirit in Vitaphone Racing and in Pirelli was unbelievable. They gave us a fantastic product, and it was great to see everybody not giving up, fighting to the last centimetre to get that victory. And all three drivers went to our physical limit. Under those conditions, with this weather, with hot temperatures, double stints with only three drivers… for sure we have to thing about it for the future! I think there was nothing left in our bodies, luckily we had a good medical department which help us a lot, especially in the last hour. It is the second time we have won this race, and we had to give a big thanks to Maserati. It is hard to thank everybody, because so many people did their best during this last four weeks, during our special preparation. Of course we had a difficult situation when we lost our other car, that driven by Vincent Vosse, Thomas Biagi, Jamie Davies, which was really competitive. However, we are very happy; we scored important points for the Championship, which we are leading now in a good way. On the other side, now we will go with a lot of weight in Paul Ricard. But it’s unbelievable, what the team did. Just unbelievable!"